As someone running a side project, how do you tackle what you should learn first?

Hey Moemin,
My advice would be to learn about your customers first - that info will tell you what your next steps are to take.
Different marketing and growth strategies are going to work for different audiences, but what remains true across all the work you do (even outside of marketing work) is that you are going to be more successful the more you understand your customers.

Start here:

• learn how to run customer interviews well (and then do some! These can be with your target audience if you don't have customers yet)
• Get to grips with JTBD by properly, properly listening to your customers, not just the bits you want to hear.
• Understand how to build value propositions that hit those Jobs your customers have.
• Get this work out in front of as many people as you can. This is the time to do the things that don't scale. Try out some different messaging based on your new found customer knowledge and see what lands best.
• Iterate on your best performing messaging and start to take that out into other channels.

From here, I'd always start with content and community - but that's what I love so I'm obviously biased!

Your audience and product might be more suited to ads or referral schemes - but you should be able to get a good idea of which parts of marketing to focus on from your customer interviews.

Lot's of good advice from @bethkcarter & @cblindsey3 so I won't repeat them...but I wanted to provide a little high level advice for you.

1. If you're overwhelmed by the size of a problem, break it down into smaller pieces.
2. Multi-tasking is a myth. Work on one thing at a time. Trying to multi task only splits your focus.

It may sound trite but it's extremely helpful to remind yourself.

Pick one area from above that you've mentioned, maybe the area that interests you most (it's easier to dive deep into topics you're interested in).

Then set a goal for yourself of X hours a day to put your head down and focus on learning about that area.

Set your X hours goal small at first, make it achievable, say 30 mins a day.

Keep a sticky note or calendar and give your self a tally mark for each day you do your X hours. You'll start to build a chain of tallys and you'll get addicted to watching it grow.

Time box your goals -> say OK, for the next 10 days, I'm going to do X hours per day on Y topic and then at the end of the day, I'm moving on to Z topic.

Hey Moemin,
I'd second what @cblindsey3 said re 'Personal Learning Campaigns' I implement a similar tactic, however I call it 'Monthly Missions' Though I'm tempted to start calling them 'Personal Learning Campaigns' As I like that phrase 😉 Either way I guess we both do the same thing which is we set a goal to do/learn something within a particular time frame and then like any good campaign/mission we closely monitor the actions and results.

I've found that since doing monthly missions these last 18x months I've achieved a lot more of my mini goals regarding health and relationships. Plus, I've learnt and read a lot more. In terms of my business I've found this approach to be particularly useful as its allowed me to break down the launch of my business into more tangible mini projects. E.g:
June = Business Plan
July = Sales Plan
August = Website
September = Branding
October = Launch
So to conclude, I'd highly reccomend implementing a similar approach. Or theming your days/weeks instead e.g Monday = Marketing. Tuesday = Research etc.
That way you always know what you need to be working on rather than being overwhelmed with choice.

Hope that helps 🙂

@yongfook mentioned in his interview on the IH podcast that he alternates weeks between building product and marketing. I think the same can be applied to learning.

Based on your most pressing business need, spend 1-2 weeks learning about it and applying what you learn. Start by making a plan: what will you learn and be able to do after that study period, what resources will you use, when and how long will you study? Once you have a plan, dive in and enjoy your daily progress.

I wrote a little about designing 'personal learning campaigns' that might be helpful: https://connorlindsey.dev/blog/learning-campaigns